Technical director of the Barbados Football Association (BFA) Ahmed Mohamed is standing by the performance of his team after their latest international assignment.
Taking on Belize at home this past weekend in the first of two friendlies, Barbados shared the honours in a goalless draw, and during the post-game interview at the BFA’s Wildey AstroTurf, Mohamed said that his team was progressing nicely.
Set the task of transforming a failing national side, Mohamed was asked about a similar scoreline in their last outing at home against Bermuda and explained that the two games could not be compared, but that he would be looking for the win in Belize.
Different style
“We know how Bermuda was playing and Belize is a totally different style of football. They are Central American and our main goal was to prepare for El Salvador and Nicaragua while they are in the same region.
“This was a to-win game – no question at all – so in the future we need to focus more on our final third.
“As we know, that is our main weakness, but everybody can see that we can keep the intensity,” he said.
Same concept
Mohamed added: “We can dominate the game and put a lot of pressure on our opponent and the concept will remain the same when we go to Belize on August 4.
“Our plan will be the same. It doesn’t matter if they are home, strong or not,” he said before adding that the team would need to work on finishing going forward.
“Up to now Barbados has been used to playing Caribbean countries. These are Central Americans. When you see where they are playing and who they play – you don’t win every day against Honduras, El Salvador, Panama, Costa Rica, while we have the opportunity to beat British Virgin Islands and Anguilla. Those are two different types of football that we are talking about, so we cannot compare.”
Noting that the level of discipline in the team was at a level not witnessed in recent years, Mohamed said that going into games against El Salvador and Nicaragua he would be seeking to play more games against Central American teams as their style differed from what Caribbean people were accustomed to.
“We are progressing. Improvement is here – everybody can see that. We are playing football. You can see our plans. So that is why I wanted to have Central Americans going forward. We will also play against strong opponents and we will focus more on other regions than what we are used to,” he said.
When asked if players such as Mario Harte and Ricardio Morris would be brought back into the side, Mohamed said forward was the only way to go in order to reap success.
No negativity
“We played five games, we lost one. This is the sixth consecutive game that we are in a positive shape, and I do not see any negativity there at all. So going forward we will do our jobs the same way we are doing it. I see consistency. Now the team that we have has an average age of 19.
“We have top talents and good quality. Everybody knows Thierry (Gale). Thierry is the future. He has a promising future. It is about time to integrate him now. We cannot go to the past and see why John Browne is not it the team. We have to focus now. That is the reality,” he said.
Going on to say that his plans were working and the progress was real as the massive margin in quality that existed before was being bridged, the former Swiss national player said he was proud of the level his players were operating at. (BFA)
